In what seems to be a war of contrasting viewpoints, the media and Internet continues to be filled with stories about the virtures of retaining older worker longer and recruiting a young workforce. For most organizations, doing both seems a sure way to balloon payroll. So many managers choose one strategy over the other.
Unfortunately in many cases, the solution is doing both. The failure to retain (or re-hire) older workers is a loss of wisdom and knowledge …. and in the case of some trade jobs, some hard to find craftsman-like skills. But the failure to begin recruiting younger replacement workers is a sure-fire way to avoid dealing with the inevitable – the once-retired will again retire and the workaholic Boomer will eventually slow down or step aside. Building a workforce these days isn't like it used to be.
The following article does a nice job of highlighting the appeal of retaining and rehiring older workers as well as addressing two of the problems in doing so – an attitude gap betweeen young managers supervising older employees and the lack of computer skills (and a resistance to learn) found in many aging workers.
The convergence of the Wired, the Tired, and Technology is challenging but an issue that must be confronted.
